Nikki Navarre's Blog - Posts Tagged "spy"
Russian Heroes in Romance: Not Your Average Ivan
“The lamplight spilled around him like water in a ship’s wake, streaming past an impregnable hull. The Slavic sharpness of high cheekbones; a canny crease between tawny brows; hard jaw glittering with the gold dust of day’s-end stubble; and a mouth whose firm press suggested ruthlessness…and sensuality.
But God—his eyes. That Nordic gaze fized her, unwavering, piercing blue as winter ice. Alexis wondered how many men had looked their last into those cold eyes, then told herself to get it together. Still, she could barely contain the shiver that whispered through her.
His lips tightened in a humorless smile. “I’m Captain First Rank Victor Tarasovich Kostenko. I’m told you’ve been looking for me.”
That’s how we meet the hero of my debut romantic suspense, The Russian Seduction, winner of the Golden Pen and the launch book for my Foreign Affairs series with River Valley Publishing. Victor quickly stakes his claim as the nemesis of my heroine, rising-star American diplomat Alexis Castle. He may be Russian (with Ukrainian roots), an unconventional choice for a romance hero, but Victor is hardly your average Ivan. Until recently, he was a submarine captain with a maverick image, the golden boy of the Russian fleet. Now he’s lost his command for an act of treason he didn’t commit. And it’s rumored he’ll do anything to get back in his government’s good graces.
Are you wondering why I chose a Russian hero? In my other life, I’m a diplomat who’s lived in Russia, where I specialize in weapons of mass destruction issues. In the line of duty, I’ve been trapped in an elevator in a nuclear power plant and stalked the corridors of facilities churning out nerve agent and other apocalyptic weapons. In this capacity, I meet many of the world’s most dangerous men. A renegade Russian submarine captain like Victor Kostenko definitely qualifies!
Look at it this way. International intrigue demands a super-smart alpha hero with a hidden agenda, an agent who operates with considerable flair. I like to think five years spent watching and working the Russian political and diplomatic scene, living in the edgy cosmopolitan world of modern-day Moscow where The Russian Seduction takes place, gave me the insider’s knowledge to write a Russian hero who’s been hard-wired by tough circumstances, like a bomb on a hairpin trigger.
My smart, sexy, uber-competitive hero—an ex-Olympic athlete with an intelligence background—makes the perfect foil for my ambitious, buttoned-tight, by-the-book American heroine. Here’s hoping you’ll agree! If you’d like to check out the rest of the scene where Alexis and Victor first meet, you can take a peek here: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/prod...
I love to hear from readers! You can find me at these coordinates…unless I find you first.
www.facebook.com/NikkiNavarreAuthor
@Nikki_Navarre on Twitter
www.LauraNavarre.com/book/Nikki-Navar...
But God—his eyes. That Nordic gaze fized her, unwavering, piercing blue as winter ice. Alexis wondered how many men had looked their last into those cold eyes, then told herself to get it together. Still, she could barely contain the shiver that whispered through her.
His lips tightened in a humorless smile. “I’m Captain First Rank Victor Tarasovich Kostenko. I’m told you’ve been looking for me.”
That’s how we meet the hero of my debut romantic suspense, The Russian Seduction, winner of the Golden Pen and the launch book for my Foreign Affairs series with River Valley Publishing. Victor quickly stakes his claim as the nemesis of my heroine, rising-star American diplomat Alexis Castle. He may be Russian (with Ukrainian roots), an unconventional choice for a romance hero, but Victor is hardly your average Ivan. Until recently, he was a submarine captain with a maverick image, the golden boy of the Russian fleet. Now he’s lost his command for an act of treason he didn’t commit. And it’s rumored he’ll do anything to get back in his government’s good graces.
Are you wondering why I chose a Russian hero? In my other life, I’m a diplomat who’s lived in Russia, where I specialize in weapons of mass destruction issues. In the line of duty, I’ve been trapped in an elevator in a nuclear power plant and stalked the corridors of facilities churning out nerve agent and other apocalyptic weapons. In this capacity, I meet many of the world’s most dangerous men. A renegade Russian submarine captain like Victor Kostenko definitely qualifies!
Look at it this way. International intrigue demands a super-smart alpha hero with a hidden agenda, an agent who operates with considerable flair. I like to think five years spent watching and working the Russian political and diplomatic scene, living in the edgy cosmopolitan world of modern-day Moscow where The Russian Seduction takes place, gave me the insider’s knowledge to write a Russian hero who’s been hard-wired by tough circumstances, like a bomb on a hairpin trigger.
My smart, sexy, uber-competitive hero—an ex-Olympic athlete with an intelligence background—makes the perfect foil for my ambitious, buttoned-tight, by-the-book American heroine. Here’s hoping you’ll agree! If you’d like to check out the rest of the scene where Alexis and Victor first meet, you can take a peek here: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/prod...
I love to hear from readers! You can find me at these coordinates…unless I find you first.
www.facebook.com/NikkiNavarreAuthor
@Nikki_Navarre on Twitter
www.LauraNavarre.com/book/Nikki-Navar...
Casino Royale with a Happy Ending: James Bond and THE RUSSIAN SEDUCTION
Thanks so much for hosting me today at Ex Libris! I’m particularly excited about blogging for you, because your smart, sophisticated, international vibe perfectly suits my debut romantic suspense, The Russian Seduction. I sometimes describe the book as Casino Royale with a happy ending, and here’s a perfect opportunity to talk about why I say that.
Let me start with a confession: Daniel Craig seduced me into the spy business. Until his icy blond James Bond strode across the silver screen in his Armani tux, I was perfectly content writing historical romance under another name. But after five years as a diplomat in Russia, where I specialized in weapons of mass destruction, coupled with an early showing of Casino Royale that I caught in Bratislava, I was pretty well convinced I needed to write some sleek, sexy romantic suspense, spiced with state secrets, champagne and international intrigue. What started as a fun diversion from my dark Tudor romances turned into The Russian Seduction, the story of a renegade Russian submarine captain and a rising-star American diplomat, and the first book in my Foreign Affairs series for Affluent Press.
In the edgy, cosmopolitan world of modern-day Moscow, both Captain Victor Kostenko and Political Counselor Alexis Castle are convinced—with good reason—that the other is an intelligence agent with a hidden agenda. The fate of two nations rests on Alexis’s ability to establish a dialogue with the renegade captain. But given the risk that Victor is under orders to compromise her—not to mention the virtual certainty that they’re under surveillance—the sizzling chemistry between them is an itch she can’t afford to scratch.
I wrote Victor with Daniel Craig’s Bond in mind. His Bond is an icy, sometimes brutal, seemingly emotionless killer. Similarly, when Alexis meets Victor, “tremors of unease rippled through her at his nearness: an aggressive global power that was her country’s greatest rival, and he was breathing down her neck. A sleepless eye that watched in the deep, a cunning predator with infinite patience—and now he’d fixed his sights on her.” I wanted readers to feel the same frisson of excitement and danger from Victor that Daniel Craig conveys so effortlessly in the film.
Despite his ruthlessness and emotional detachment, James Bond’s intense but doomed love affair with ally-turned-adversary Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) also reveals emotional vulnerability. Vesper tells him, “You think of women as disposable treasures.” Bond makes a point of telling Vesper he prefers married women because the arrangement avoids emotional entanglement. Yet despite his checkered history, Bond falls in love with Vesper—counter to his inclinations, and completely outside his comfort zone. He reveals his love and vulnerability when he tells her, “I have no armor left. You’ve stripped it from me. Whatever I am, I’m yours. Is that enough for you?”
I gave Victor similar moments of vulnerability and exposure in The Russian Seduction, although it’s a side of him only Alexis gets to see. Victor reveals his attraction early, and the fact that Alexis unsettles him, when he asks, “Should I consider it mere coincidence that the government of the United States appointed you to become my counterpart: the woman they calculated I’d be least able to resist?” Later, by the time he knows he’s fallen for her—hard—this uber-confident, ex-Olympic athlete and adrenaline junkie is reduced to tongue-tied frustration. “Alexis, I can’t—I don’t want—damn it, I don’t know how to think about the future without you in it. I told you I’m a disaster at this. Do I have to spell it out?”
After the stunt he’s pulled, Alexis is more than happy to let Victor sweat a bit before she opens the door to their happily-ever-after.
Of course, the two don’t reach this point without plenty of thrills, chills, chases and escapes, in true 007 fashion. While the car chase in Casino Royale takes place at Miami Airport, Victor and Alexis burn rubber to escape their pursuers on the crowded streets of downtown Moscow in The Russian Seduction. In place of Bond’s hair-raising pursuit of an athletic, nearly airborne bomb maker through the hazards of an African construction site, Victor and Alexis leap from a speeding train to escape on foot through the Siberian tundra. The couple’s final confrontation with the villain takes place not in a Montenegrin casino, like Bond’s confrontation with poker genius Le Chiffre, but in a posh St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) nightclub where—despite the metal detector on the door—half the guests are armed.
I hope I’ve given you a bit of entertainment to savor over your vodka martini (shaken, not stirred). If you remember nothing else, my name is Navarre. Nikki Navarre.
I’d love to hear from you!
You can check out an excerpt from The Russian Seduction here: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/produ...
Nikki’s Coordinates:
Twitter: @Nikki_Navarre
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/NikkiNavarreAuthor
Website: www.LauraNavarre.com/book/Nikki-Navar....
(This blog first published for Stella Ex Libris.)
Let me start with a confession: Daniel Craig seduced me into the spy business. Until his icy blond James Bond strode across the silver screen in his Armani tux, I was perfectly content writing historical romance under another name. But after five years as a diplomat in Russia, where I specialized in weapons of mass destruction, coupled with an early showing of Casino Royale that I caught in Bratislava, I was pretty well convinced I needed to write some sleek, sexy romantic suspense, spiced with state secrets, champagne and international intrigue. What started as a fun diversion from my dark Tudor romances turned into The Russian Seduction, the story of a renegade Russian submarine captain and a rising-star American diplomat, and the first book in my Foreign Affairs series for Affluent Press.
In the edgy, cosmopolitan world of modern-day Moscow, both Captain Victor Kostenko and Political Counselor Alexis Castle are convinced—with good reason—that the other is an intelligence agent with a hidden agenda. The fate of two nations rests on Alexis’s ability to establish a dialogue with the renegade captain. But given the risk that Victor is under orders to compromise her—not to mention the virtual certainty that they’re under surveillance—the sizzling chemistry between them is an itch she can’t afford to scratch.
I wrote Victor with Daniel Craig’s Bond in mind. His Bond is an icy, sometimes brutal, seemingly emotionless killer. Similarly, when Alexis meets Victor, “tremors of unease rippled through her at his nearness: an aggressive global power that was her country’s greatest rival, and he was breathing down her neck. A sleepless eye that watched in the deep, a cunning predator with infinite patience—and now he’d fixed his sights on her.” I wanted readers to feel the same frisson of excitement and danger from Victor that Daniel Craig conveys so effortlessly in the film.
Despite his ruthlessness and emotional detachment, James Bond’s intense but doomed love affair with ally-turned-adversary Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) also reveals emotional vulnerability. Vesper tells him, “You think of women as disposable treasures.” Bond makes a point of telling Vesper he prefers married women because the arrangement avoids emotional entanglement. Yet despite his checkered history, Bond falls in love with Vesper—counter to his inclinations, and completely outside his comfort zone. He reveals his love and vulnerability when he tells her, “I have no armor left. You’ve stripped it from me. Whatever I am, I’m yours. Is that enough for you?”
I gave Victor similar moments of vulnerability and exposure in The Russian Seduction, although it’s a side of him only Alexis gets to see. Victor reveals his attraction early, and the fact that Alexis unsettles him, when he asks, “Should I consider it mere coincidence that the government of the United States appointed you to become my counterpart: the woman they calculated I’d be least able to resist?” Later, by the time he knows he’s fallen for her—hard—this uber-confident, ex-Olympic athlete and adrenaline junkie is reduced to tongue-tied frustration. “Alexis, I can’t—I don’t want—damn it, I don’t know how to think about the future without you in it. I told you I’m a disaster at this. Do I have to spell it out?”
After the stunt he’s pulled, Alexis is more than happy to let Victor sweat a bit before she opens the door to their happily-ever-after.
Of course, the two don’t reach this point without plenty of thrills, chills, chases and escapes, in true 007 fashion. While the car chase in Casino Royale takes place at Miami Airport, Victor and Alexis burn rubber to escape their pursuers on the crowded streets of downtown Moscow in The Russian Seduction. In place of Bond’s hair-raising pursuit of an athletic, nearly airborne bomb maker through the hazards of an African construction site, Victor and Alexis leap from a speeding train to escape on foot through the Siberian tundra. The couple’s final confrontation with the villain takes place not in a Montenegrin casino, like Bond’s confrontation with poker genius Le Chiffre, but in a posh St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) nightclub where—despite the metal detector on the door—half the guests are armed.
I hope I’ve given you a bit of entertainment to savor over your vodka martini (shaken, not stirred). If you remember nothing else, my name is Navarre. Nikki Navarre.
I’d love to hear from you!
You can check out an excerpt from The Russian Seduction here: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/produ...
Nikki’s Coordinates:
Twitter: @Nikki_Navarre
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/NikkiNavarreAuthor
Website: www.LauraNavarre.com/book/Nikki-Navar....
(This blog first published for Stella Ex Libris.)
